Chapter 387: Captain. Advance North

Translator: Exodus Tales Editor: Exodus Tales

Edited by Aelryinth

Over the next two days, Zhang Che drove around all of Bei Du, visiting every place that sold high-grade ingredients. He spent another ten million purple crystal points or so, purchasing every high-grade ingredient he could find.

He even checked with his data eyes, and discovered that the ingredients needed for his legend-quality babies’ ranking up were pretty much secured.

Well, it was impossible to have everything on the list. Some extremely rare ingredients couldn’t be bought in just a few days’ time. Even so, Zhang Che was very satisfied.

Now that he had stockpiled the basic ingredients, in the future he only had to look for the rarer ingredients slowly and his legend-quality babies could rank up.

Even if legend-quality subdued beasts didn’t advance in quality, and only ranked up in level, their overall strength would more than double. It had a huge effect on their combat strength!

—–

On the morning of the eighth of October, Year Thirty-Six of the New Era…

Zhang Che had once again received a notification from Huang Juyun. Soon, a major drove to his place to pick him up, bringing him directly to a base in Bei Du city’s military district.

After arriving there, Zhang Che realized there weren’t many other beastmasters there. At present, they were gathered in small groups in the plaza, numbering between three and four hundred of them.

-This shouldn’t be… Didn’t they say they wanted to enlist a large amount of mid-tier beastmasters? Why are there so few people?-

Soon, Zhang Che saw his father-in-law walking out of the camp. He immediately got out of the car and went up to greet him. “Uncle Huang!”

Huang Juyun nodded. He seemed to have seen through the doubt in Zhang Che’s eyes and smiled, explaining, “This time, the ones gathered here are the strongest of the batch. That’s why there aren’t many people here..”

Zhang Che understood then. No wonder there were so few beastmasters here. It turned out that there were other beastmasters gathered at another location!

——

The two chatted for a short while. No other cars came up the road to the military camp, and the time reached 10 AM.

Huang Juyun signalled Zhang Che. Afterwards, under the escort of a few officers, the former walked up to a platform at the side of the plaza, and he swept his gaze across the crowd. The gathered beastmasters who were originally talking in low voices immediately quieted down.

“Everyone here is a young talent of our Bei Du City. I believe I don’t have to say much about what the mission this time is; you should already know the situation by now.

“I only ask one thing from all of you. That is, since you have joined in on this mission, you have to obey orders. Don’t bring in the bad habits you have from society!

“What you are going to face might be the greatest enemies of humanity in the future. Any carelessness might bring you, or even the whole team, great danger!

“I hope everyone here will remember this!”

No one in the crowd made a sound.

From a certain perspective, the beastmasters enlisted here were considered good people. At the very least, they haven’t done anything bad on Mercury.

After a short pause, Huang Juyun continued, “This time, we’ve gathered all of you here to form kill-teams that will specifically handle the stronger forces among the demonic creatures, and at the same time, support the other squads. So, later on we’ll split you up into ten groups.

“If any one of you is willing to become the captain of your group, you can step forward now. After the completion of this mission, the captains will receive extra rewards.”

After adding in the last sentence, Huang Juyun suddenly looked towards Zhang Che in the crowd.

Zhang Che was stunned. -Does father-in-law want me to be a captain?- After seeing Huang Juyun’s subtle, near unnoticeable nod, he could only step forth speechlessly.

In the end, he realized he was the first freaking guy to step out!

Although, if he had to be a captain, so be it. He didn’t have to listen to the poor commands of others this way. If any sudden changes occurred during the battle, he could quickly react to them.

Seeing Zhang Che being the first to step forward, Huang Juyun smiled in satisfaction. He planned for this future son-in-law to take up his mantle in the future. Training him for it now was very beneficial.

After all, other than exotic beasts, humanity would also have to face the seemingly even more cruel demonic creatures in the future. No matter how strong an individual was, how could it compare to the cooperation of a team?

Well, unless this prospective son-in-law owned a divine-quality or higher subdued beast, of course! That was a different matter…

However, were divine-quality exotic beasts so easy to hunt?

Let alone divine-quality, even high-tier epic-quality exotic beasts had barely been hunted by humanity all these years. Even with Huang Juyun’s high authority, allowing him to see many confidential files, he knew that divine-quality subdued beasts were extremely rare.

Beastmasters who owned divine-quality subdued beasts were all cornerstones of humanity! Which of those figures didn’t finally grow to that stage through many years of effort and extraordinary luck?

Huang Juyun was also aware that Zhang Che’s luck was much better than others. However, he was too young of a star. If it was in the past, Huang Juyun wouldn’t mind letting Zhang Che develop on his own, but now that the demonic world had invaded, in addition to the threat of the beast worlds, there were too many variables.

In order to ensure Zhang Che’s safety, it was better to let him develop in the military.

——

Zhang Che naturally didn’t know all the considerations his father-in-law had for him. Otherwise, he would surely tell him loud and clear that he already had a divine-quality beast, and it was a super divine-quality, to boot!… well, it was still an infant right now, and heavens knew how many months and years it would be before it matured. Regardless, that was a super divine-quality baby, wasn’t it?

None of the beastmasters present thought they were inferior to the others. Seeing Zhang Che stepping forward, more people quickly did the same.

In the end, more than twenty mid-tier beastmasters gathered around Zhang Che in the blink of an eye. Huang Juyun had asked for ten captains, and now he had more than twice the amount he asked for.

Everyone had originally thought that the twenty-some people would have to spar with one another to decide the final ten captains. In the end, Huang Juyun nodded and smiled, saying, “Alright, there’s no one else stepping forward. Then we’ll split everyone here into twenty-three squads, with the twenty-three people in front here as the captains. Assemble immediately, we’ll set off in half an hour’s time!”

The crowd burst out laughing. Hadn’t they said to split into ten groups originally?

After a short allocation, the twenty-three squads were quickly formed. Every squad had about fifteen members. After receiving their supplies and the necessarily equipment in the base, they got in transportation vehicles and drove off towards the nearest military airbase.

—

Each squad was in one transportation vehicle. Zhang Che got to know his squad members briefly in the vehicle, in case he didn’t even know what his subordinates’ names were when the time came.

Of course, Zhang Che couldn’t remember everyone’s names right away. He could only slowly familiarize himself with them in the upcoming days.

Since Zhang Che was the first to step forth, their squad was referred to as Squad One. There were fifteen members, in addition, eleven men and four women.

After introducing themselves to one another, a female member named Li Xin suddenly looked at Zhang Che, her eyes shining, and asked with anticipation, “Captain, are you… that Zhang Che who fought in an arena deathmatch against the Zhen family a few days ago?”

The arena deathmatch had caused a huge sensation in Bei Du for a period of time. Although most people had never seen what Zhang Che looked like, from the way he spoke with Huang Juyun earlier, everyone had garnered a little something.

When Li Xin voiced out her question, everyone’s gazes immediately fell upon Zhang Che.

-Hmm, am I that famous in Bei Du now?- Zhang Che didn’t answer directly. He only smiled and nodded, acknowledging it.

“Woah, you really are!” Li Xin nearly jumped out of her seat in excitement. She said happily, “What a relief. I was worried it would be dangerous on this mission. Now that we have captain, we’ll surely be fine!”

The others also showed relieved smiles.

Being able to slay a mid-tier beastmaster with two epic-quality subdued beasts in one move, Zhang Che’s strength was noted by those who knew about the matter. Some of them had even guessed that Zhang Che had a fighting chance against high-tier epic-quality exotic beasts!

They would surely be much safer with such a strong captain!

Although the officials had promised an extremely high reward for this mission, everyone was worried inside. If they encountered some danger and lost their lives, what use was it, no matter how high the rewards were?

Facing this situation, Zhang Che was very satisfied, too. Since they knew about his strength, he didn’t have to worry about them not obeying his orders.

——-

At noon, a fleet of transportation aircraft took off and headed north under the escort of squadrons of fighter jets.

In addition to twenty-three squads of Zhang Che and the others, which would act as the sharp knives, there were another thousand mid-tier beastmasters from both military and civilian. They would be the main fighting force, coordinating with the aerial strikes to eliminate the demonic army around the demonic gateway in the northern ice plains.

In the end, this was actually a drill for the mid-tier beastmasters, to familiarize them with the demonic creatures’ fighting style and strength, and better prepare them for the crueler battle in the future.

It wasn’t just Bei Du. All of Hua Xia, and even all of Mercury, were in similar situations.

If they didn’t use this opportunity to drill their people while the demonic creatures were still weak, when the more powerful demonic creatures invaded in the future, how were they going to get used to the fighting style of the demonic creatures?

Also, if they could wipe out the demonic creatures that had already invaded Mercury, or drive them away, the beastmasters could cooperate with the military to block off the demonic gateway, preventing more demonic creatures from crossing over.

Once the demonic creatures on Mercury were thoroughly eradicated, they would be unable to obtain more corpses of exotic beasts. No matter what conspiracies they had, they wouldn’t be able to act on them!

—

After more than two hours of flight, the convoy finally arrived at the icy plains in the north…